Baked Pumpkin Oatmeal & A Book Review

I was on the fence while reading through The Everything Gluten-Free College Cookbook. Why? I felt that while the recipes are solid, it wasn’t realistic. Better to have named it the “The Everything Gluten-Free First Apartment Cookbook“. A number of the recipes need a stove or oven, something that I am going to guess just isn’t realistic for most students in dorms. I always lived on my own, in apartments when I was in college, so I had an actual kitchen, but how many young adults have that resource? And you need a refrigerator, as well as pots, pans and measuring cups. So if you need a gift for a college grad who is setting out in the world, who is GF, good choice. Bad choice for an 18 year-old who can’t have appliances in their dorm room.

Anyhow, while it isn’t fall, I decided on a baked pumpkin oatmeal. I tried it twice, first with egg as directed, then vegan the second time. You won’t miss the egg at all, it tastes exactly the same!

Baked Pumpkin Oatmeal

Ingredients:

½ cup canned pumpkin purée

1 large egg or 1 tbsp ground flaxseed meal + 3 Tbsp water

1/3 cup pure maple syrup

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

2/3 cup milk, dairy or favorite non-dairy

2 cups old-fashioned oats, GF certified, if needed

1½ tsp baking powder

1 tsp ground cinnamon

½ tsp ground ginger

½ tsp sea salt

¼ tsp ground nutmeg

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°, lightly oil an 8×8″ glass baking dish.

Whisk wet ingredients together in a medium mixing bowl. Stir dry ingredients together in a large mixing bowl, add wet, stir to combine.

Spread in prepared baking dish, bake for 30 minutes. Serve warm, or cool, cover and refrigerate. Warm in microwave for about a minute.

Makes 4 servings.

Note:

The recipe called for an optional ½ cup walnuts or pecans, diced, added with the oats, for a crunch to the oatmeal. I let this out so Alistaire could enjoy it with us.

So far it is just wheat – I figure we will do gluten testing later on – especially since he hasn’t eaten much gluten products in his first 17 months (which was a good thing it seems!) I’ll admit we use regular Bob’s oats and he does eat them
As for the book, that was another thing that got me snorting – it isn’t single servings, which I had kind of hoped for. It is many multi-person recipes. Which…I guess isn’t a bad thing, eh? PS: If you want the book, just say yes, I’ll send it your way!

Thanks, but Knox just doesn’t eat enough to justify another gf book. We eat as usual (which happens to be naturally gf much of the time) and I’ll sub something in for Knox if he can’t have what we eat. But honestly, he really eats next to nothing most days so I don’t go out of my way to keep the house fully gf.
I’m glad it appears to be just wheat so far, hopefully as he grows you can introduce other grains opening up his diet a little more. Our wonderful boys really make life interesting!